Snapcase

An interview with Daryl from Snapcase when they played the Garage in November 2002.

So the new record, are you happy with how it’s been received?
D: Yeah it’s been great so far. I mean we’ve been on tour in the states, we’ve been on tour for six weeks and the reception to the new material went really well and it sits nicely in a bill with our old material because it just gives a more rounded set. It gives some breathing room just for a little during the set.

RN: Did you deliberatly set out to write a more melodic album?
D: Well the only thing that we did deliberatley was to try and make a record that was darker than all our other records! We also wanted to make a record that stood apart from our other records – your know, and it definetly did. There are some slower tempos on this album, and times, and there’s definetly alot more atmospheric type of music. But for the most part this album is in a way our heaviest record. It’s not the full on start to finish assault that ‘Progression through unlearning’ is, but I think that it’s more aggressive than our last record, and it’s got alot more emotion and some heavier songs. I think that the songs on here are as heavy as we’ve ever written.

RN: What was influencing you on this record. Like where you were in your life and what music you were listening to?
D: This record…the main thing for this record was that all five of us were songwriters on this record. So the influences were coming from all over the place. On each record we’ve had more of a contribution from a complete band rather than like one or two people working on their own material. I don’t know – it’s been a good thing. It’s hard to pinpoint any one or two groups that influenced this record. I would have to say that on an inspirational level and a creative level, probably three albums would really stick out to me and that would be – refused ’shape of punk…’, At the drive-in ‘relationships of command’ and Deftones ‘White Pony’, and I’d have to say that those three records sparked the creative flame within us – you know – because we’re very close to the guys in the Deftones and we’re pretty close with the guys in Refused so even on a personal level we know the guys, and to see someone that you know push it until you get that far you know it makes us want to push ourselves harder as well.

RN: Is this your favourite album so far that you’ve made?
D: Without a doubt!
RN: Can you improve on it?
D: I think so. We didn’t set out to write this record, trying to please all the fans that we already had. We wanted to write a record that was gonna be fun and interesting for us so that we’re excited to keep going. I mean we’re now over ten years going as a band so…if someone asks me ‘why would a band change their sound somewhat?’, I’d say well, ‘Our last album came out three years ago and maybe think back to what bands you were listening to three years ago and it’s something different to what it is right now’, especially if you’re younger. It’s just the way it goes. But I think this record definetly sounds like Snapcase but it’s definetly different to all our other records.

RN: Considering your lyrics would you say that you’re a political band – or person?
D: We’re not like an outright political band. As a unit we don’t make outright political stances against any one movement, or back anyone movement. But I think that it’s important to be political even on an individual level. And you know it dosen’t necessarily have to be ‘Oh go and picket this company because they’re bad’. It comes down to a sense of awareness, to what you’re doing and where you’re spending your money and who you’re supporting and just getting that awareness. Making people think about how they’re supporting things or not supporting things that might be the right things to support. That’s a step in itself. And I think also this album is something like a concept album in creating world that is in one way far fetched and slightly ridiculous but at the same time is not. I mean future society has the potential to become somewhat of a prison culture and in a way it’s trying to catch peoples attention. The problem is that things have to get so ridiculous – like we have to be imprisoned – really imprisoned, before we realise that we have to do something about it. People will constantly complain about the people in power and how the things are unjust but will never do anything about it until it starts to become really really obvious.
RN: Does it bother you then that western society sometimes seems so apathetic?
D: Ummm…I don’t know – I mean I guess so. I mean we all get caught up it in it in someways. There are all parts of our lives that we don’t want to risk – you know? And there are certain cultures that are willing to risk everything to make it better for themselves, and the things that they believe in, but they’re definetly not western cultures.

RN: Would you say that you’re a spiritual band – or to make it sound less like a cliche that you have spiritual ideas in your lyrics?
D: Yeah I think so – not – again we’re not a christian band or anything like that. But you know it’s spiritual in the way that believing you leave a mark, you know. What lies ahead, you have alot of control of what lies ahead. It’s just keeping in mind what you, and who you are as a person, and how you act and impact on other people – people that you meet! The mark that you might leave, which in a sense is spiritual. In another way it’s kind of believing in things that will give you the strength to kind of move forward that aren’t material things.

RN: Are you as a band in charge of all your artwork – do you as a band create it – or do you control it? Because it kind of has your personality as a band on it?
D: Yeah, well previous albums, the last two, ‘Designs for Automotion’, and ‘Progression…’, the artwork on the album covers was done by the same guy named Limberg Fabian. And basically we would send him the lyrics and the music and see what he came up with and it was his artistic interpretation of what was going on. With the new record we wanted to get away from the painting and do something a little different – again to make this album stand out, so we wanted with photographs and more computer style graphic design and our friend clint who does all our website design, he was the one who was in charge of designing the covers. And again he was involved in the lyrical concepts and things like that.

RN: What do you think of the whole Victory record Vs Thursday thing?
D: Well I’m sure that Victory did something that Thursday didn’t like and Thursday was in a position where noone knew they were going to become as popular as they did, and umm you know, we’ve been with Victory records for ten years now and we’ve seen lots of bands come and go, we’ve seen bands complain, leave, go somewhere else and have problems and then they come back. Like Earth Crisis, they went to Roadrunner, and then they came back to Victory – so in the long run they should have stayed. So it’s one of those situations where you can’t tell if they made the right deciscion until the next record comes out on a different label. I mean it’s not a friendly business. When it comes down to a relationship between a band and it’s label, it’s simply business, because their sole purpose is to sell records to make money, and as a band they’re the vehicle to allow you to tour and get the music out to people. Thursday’s a young band, and their big complaint was that Tony didn’t have an interest in pushing the band to begin with, but no matter what label you’re on, you’re only going to get so much out of the label and once you start selling and getting out records, they’re going to get more money behind you and that’s just the way that it is. It’s not like it’s just victory that’s like that every label is like that. I think to be honest they just didn’t understand alot of it! And also I think they got offered alot of money to move onto another label, and I mean you have to have have someone to blame to kind of like make the jump from an indie to a major!

RN: Do you think as a band, you’ve been doing it now 12 years?
D: Almost…
RN: Yeah, have you achieved everything you wanted to achieve or do you still have ambitions to kind of reach other things?
D: I never expected anything out of this band, we didn’t expect people to like it. We didn’t expect it to get this far, it was fun to be playing instruments in a basement writing songs, and imitating favourite bands. To get offered a show eventually because someone thought that we were good enough that was like ‘wow’. To play a show it was like ‘wow we’ve done more than we expected to’. So to have been able to travel all over the world and put out all the albums like we have and to meet all the different people in all the different coutries has wildly exceeded all our expectations. We’re not one of those bands that set up to be big video stars and headlining at major festivals and all that, or covers of magazines and what not…So to be where we are now we’re pretty happy! I mean of course we’re still a band because there are things that we’d still like to move forward and do, umm but selling more and more records is not part of that plan.